Fallout: 2 Minutes Past Midnight
by Bizu Campeche
Summary: An idealist to a fault, Preston Garvey spends his time working tirelessly for the Minutemen's cause, making sure the settlers are safe. Ensuring they are comfortable. Ensuring that the Quincy Massacre never happens again. And while he's awake and working, the screams can't haunt him. During the journey to Sanctuary, he meets a whirlwind of a woman with an appetite for destruction a


Preston slid his back down the splintered, bullet-riddled door. Each breath was a flame licking at the inside of his lungs and throat. Five. There were five of them left; out of that pathetic fraction of survivors, only he and Sturges were capable of defending themselves and the other three against the unrelenting onslaught of Raiders. And now they were running out of ammo. From the silence on the other side of the door, he could assume their stock had dwindled too. Whatever hadn't ended up embedded in the walls and doors, had likely ended up in Davis, Sinclair, and Bennington's bodies.

Died like damned heroes, those three. Had it not been for their bravery, the rest of them wouldn't have made it into the Museum of Freedom. And yet, another three, dead on his watch. First, there were twenty. Yesterday, eight. Now, five and dwindling. If this didn't make him unfit to lead, then he didn't know what else could.

Though he couldn't quite bring himself to look at Marcy Long, he could feel her hateful glare burning at his skin like fire, even through the layers of his leather duster. That was fine. He would blame himself, too, if he were in her situation. Her husband, Jun, hadn't spoken a word since Quincy. Not since Kyle. Marcy did most of the talking nowadays and rarely was it civil. Again, he couldn't blame her.

Preston wasn't the sole target of her ire, however. Her jaw seemed to clench whenever Mama Murphy took a ragged breath or coughed. And she did that a lot. No amount of well-meaning interventions would repair the damage from that many years of chem addiction. If he could only to convince her to stop. But that was another task, for another day. If they even survived another day.

"She rises from the seas like the sun," Mama Murphy said. Her knobby fingers clutched the armrest on the dark love-seat, her hazy blue eyes large and protruding, and Preston felt his stomach drop through the floorboards. "The ice melts but the wounds are fresh. She rises from the seas dressed in destruction, but at the heart lies redemption... Or is it the other way around?"

"Oh, shut the hell up already!"

"Now, Marcy," Sturges said, towering over her, "I can't have ya hollerin' at Mama Murphy like that."

"This is all her fault! If it weren't for her—her..." Her dry, thin lips crinkled in a snarl. Mama Murphy coughed and hacked before swooning back into her couch. "She's a _junkie! _Who takes tactical advice from a junkie? This is our lives you're playing with! Are you listening to me?"

"I understand you're upset, and you have every right to be. But you really ain't helping the situation—"

"—The situation the _three of you_ got us into! Just let them take her already!"

"That is enough," Preston said. If Gristle's men heard them quarreling among themselves, they would no doubt use this against them. "No one is taking anyone. Mama Murphy, do you need some water?"

The old White woman shook her head and waved her hand.

"Save it for later, kid. Unless you got some more Jet for me."

He ignored Marcy's grunt of frustration and peered through a rotting wooden slat. Still empty since the last time they'd felled the previous wave of Raiders. No way they were done. As individuals, Raiders were foolhardy, reckless addicts with a lack of foresight; round them up with a semi-intelligent leader, however, and they were vicious relentless bloodthirsty creatures.

The shadows on the floor were getting longer, the flickering of candlelight tracing the outlines of his companions' faces, but not much else. And the quiet... It was too damn quiet. So quiet, he could make out each thought swirling behind his eyes. Thoughts about the fact that he had abso-damn-lutely not a goddamn clue about what to do. About Quincy. Colonel Hollis. Clint. _Kyle..._ The screams... Preston sucked a breath in, pressed his eyes shut and shook it off. This was exactly the kind of situation an enemy would use to—

—_THUD!_

He reeled forward onto his knees from the impact behind him, nearly dropping his laser musket to the ground. The door shook with each blow: blunt but powerful. A battering ram of some sort, he assumed.

"Sturges!"

The tall mechanic nodded at him in understanding and helped him drag the desk toward the door. And, after some gentle coaxing and apologies, Mama Murphy's couch, too. Not that some old wooden furniture would hold up against such frequent violent collision, but Preston hoped it would buy them some time.

"Come on!" a Raider shouted from the outside.

Gunshots popped outside the window, making pulp and jagged chips out of the wooden frames. The pieces flew and clattered onto the floor around the three civilians huddled together. With a signal of Preston's fingers, Sturges took to guarding the door while he took point at the window. He lowered the brim of his leather hat, raised his tattered scarf over his nose and crept toward the balcony. Another wave of bullets. _Rat-tat-tat-tat._ Pressing his back against the wall, he swallowed, as if that would make the echoes and ghosts and screams go away long enough for him to refocus.

A dog's bark rang out in the distance. Did Gristle's men have attack dogs now? A man's agonized shout proved otherwise.

"The goddamn hell is goin' on out there?" Sturges asked. He pointed his weapon through a slat, pulled the trigger, and Preston heard the thump of a body. Hell of a shot, that Sturges.

"Not sure." The gunshots still flew like a plague of locusts, but no longer was the museum their target. He peered through the scope on his musket. Broken concrete and cobblestone. Bodies and more garbage. A metallic slash and a growing stream of dark liquid, glistening red in the streetlights. Its owner: a Raider. Glass shattered somewhere, followed by a cloud of flames, running the path of the liquid once in the glass container. It seemed like a great part of Concord was on fire. "Is that...a Mister Handy?" he mumbled.

"Aw, shit! A Mister Handy? You serious?" Sturges said. "I ain't seen one of those in ages!" It was almost as if he'd forgotten the dire situation they were in. He hadn't seen him this giddy about anything before. Not in the months they'd known each other.

Into the pool of incandescent light stepped a figure in a large tan duster, a yellow scarf over the lower half of their face, and some kind of brimmed helmet. A glare shone over the bloody machete they wielded. He hadn't even heard them arrive. The Raider at their feet obviously didn't either. The figure crouched behind a wall of sandbags while their dog sunk its teeth into another Raider, and the Mister Handy unleashed a saw-like weapon from its arm stalk, freeing the man from his leg. He fell over, a pained scream ripping from his throat. The figure quickly stood, aimed a shotgun at his head, and his scream stopped with the deafening pop of a slug.

"Preston! The door's about to give out!"

Sturges was leaning against every piece of furniture available in this death trap of a room, and it wasn't doing much good against the ancient wooden planks and the constant pummeling from the outside.

Out of options.

The stranger outside flung some object at a nearby balcony. The explosion engulfed the sniper's nest and the poor fools in it.

Quiet. It was quiet again.

"Hey!" Preston shouted. "Hey, up here on the balcony!"

It seemed to get their attention, as they approached the closest lamppost, tilting their head up. He still couldn't tell anything about them. But, perhaps by some miracle, they were a half-decent person. In any case, they were listening.

"I've got a group of settlers inside! The Raiders almost through the door!" Getting through the bastards inside with a machete and some homemade explosives was probably not the wisest of ideas—not when the centuries-old building was essentially a giant box of kindling. Sinclair's mangled body lay by the steps, her laser musket not a few feet away from her. "Grab that laser musket and help us!"

The stranger tilted their head for a second and scanned their surroundings, only to look back up at him with an exasperated shrug. Did they not know what a laser musket was? He supposed there was more than one weapon on the ground, so he pointed at it.

"Please," he begged, voice breaking.

Whether it was from ignorance or an insistence on good manners, the stranger seemed to get it, as they picked up the musket and headed inside with their two companions. Not long after, the thumping on the door stopped; a hailstorm of bullets resumed, directed away from Preston's group.

Jun's whimpering poured out in a string of nonsensical babble; Marcy wrapped her arms around him, that signature scowl etched on her face. She could be described as many unpleasant things, but Preston was sure she would take on a pack of deathclaws to protect Jun.

When the noise outside stopped, he and Sturges began dragging the furniture back. If a stray Raider decided to barge in, they'd be ready. As long as it was only one or two. Just then, he heard footfalls approaching the door.

"Get back," he told Sturges, and aimed his laser musket. If the Raider was going to invade their space, Preston would beat them to it. Before he could twist the doorknob on his end, the other side turned and pushed the door open, and now there was the barrel of a shotgun in his face. He barely registered Sturges yelling something behind him. Following the line of the shotgun barrel, he stared into a pair of large, dark, almond-shaped eyes, wide from fear, or surprise. A woman with skin like rich, red clay. Her lips were full and painted bright scarlet. Around her neck was a sheer yellow scarf, matching her long-sleeved pre-war dress. This was no Raider. This was the stranger he'd asked for help. The duster and helmet had been discarded on the floor behind her for some reason. Preston lowered his musket.

"Oh, wait!" she said. The dog with her had scuttled toward Mama Murphy, who had made her way back to her couch. It sat at the old woman's feet happily as if it had found its owner and she bent over with a pained groan, just to pet the scruffy dog.

"You're not what I expected Dogmeat would find in that little neighborhood," Mama Murphy said. "But, oh, so much better."

The woman's thick dark eyebrows arched. "Dogmeat. His name is Dogmeat?" Her accent marked her as being from the Capitol Wasteland, maybe, though there was something slightly off and lyrical about it.

"There are and have been many Dogmeats throughout history. And there will continue to be."

She snorted and held her gloved wrist to her nose. "Hey, Codsy? The dog's name is Dogmeat," she chuckled. The robot groaned. Preston didn't find it particularly funny: everyone in the wasteland at one point owned or had met a dog named Dogmeat. It was the "John" or "Steve" of dog names, wasn't it? Must have been some inside joke between the two, he figured. She cleared her throat. "Sorry... So, he's your dog?"

"Oh, he ain't my dog. Dogmeat, he's what you'd call his own man. You can't own a free spirit like that. But he chooses his friends and sticks with 'em. He'll stay by you now." She leaned forward. "I _saw_ it."

The woman didn't say anything, though Preston expected her to at least accuse her of being insane. But, no. She nodded politely, though her eyes glanced at him as if begging for a clue, an explanation, an out, _something. _Well, it was the least he could do for her after saving their asses.

"Man, I don't know who you are, but your timing's impeccable." He held his hand out to her and she shook it. "Preston Garvey, Commonwealth Minutemen."

"_Hoolydlotus _Cortéz," was what he heard. Her accent deepened, becoming a bit more nasal than before.

It took a few more polite requests to repeat herself before she laughed and wrote it down. _Julia Dolores. _But when it came to her much easier surname, her hand hesitated over the scrap paper; she scribbled down, "Vidal," instead. Before he could ask, she shrugged. "I prefer my maiden name, anyway."

A bad divorce? On the run from an abusive spouse? He supposed it wasn't his business to ask. He did notice, however, that she was giving him a careful once-over.

"So, Minutemen, huh?"

He briefed her on their ideals, their recent plight on finding a proper settlement, their many losses. Part of him expected her to react to the story, either with pity or anger or exasperation, but she nodded, asked relevant questions, keeping her expression otherwise neutral. From her ignorance relating to ghouls, he surmised she wasn't a local. In fact, no part of her looked like that of a wastelander. She was too smooth, too clean, too... (rounded?)

When Sturges told her about their minigun idea, she frowned. Couldn't blame her. Few people enjoyed going near vertibirds. Nothing but death from above no matter where one sat. Upon mentioning the power armor, he saw her shoulders relax a little.

Preston chimed in with his suggestion for the Fusion Core. Within seconds, she reached into her knapsack and held one out in between her gloved fingers.

"You mean one of these?"

"How'd you get to it?" Sturges asked. "I couldn't get that damned gate to open!"

"Bobby pin," she replied.

"Well, I'll be damned."

She stashed the little cylinder back in her bag. "I still don't know what I'm supposed to do with it, though."

"Just jack the core into the power armor and grab that minigun," Preston said. "Those Raiders'll know they picked the wrong fight." And for good measure, he added, "Good luck."

Julia gave him the faintest hint of a smile and headed out the door. Before she headed up to the roof, however, he caught her staring off to the right of her, her tapered jawline tensing. The banners, depicting heroes of the American Revolutionary War. Was that what she was staring at? Whatever the case, she disappeared off to finish the job.

"We ask for help and what do we get?" Marcy was pacing back and forth so much, he wondered how the hardwood floors didn't have the grooves of her footprints. "Some Diamond City housewife? What's she going to do in that dress? Screw the Raiders to death? Beat them with her feather duster?"

"Now that's about enough, ma'am," Sturges chided.

Nothing to do now but wait. And wait.

And wait.

Had she made it? Or had some stray Raiders surprised her on the way up? Damn. There was no way of knowing unless he left the settlers here on their own. And Sturges' exhaustion was wearing visibly under his eye bags. Why did everything he screw up everything he had a part in? The Minutemen were fine until he joined. Quincy had been relatively peaceful until he brought his men. Kyle had been a healthy boy until he came around.

The trill of a minigun startled him awake from his self-pity. Racing over to the balcony, he saw Raiders turning into puree under the spray of bullets from above. Gristle, clad in his metal cage armor, rose to his feet and ran toward her with his weapon in hand. A brief lead shower turned him to a spray of carnage. Even the deathclaw_—holy hell, a deathclaw?_—who decided to join the party was no match for her.

Not an hour passed by and she had exterminated, with the exception of her allies, every lifeform visible to the naked eye, leaping out of the power armor with the grace of a dancer, if he'd ever seen one. Her long braid, now disheveled, resembled the swinging tail of a radscorpion; she might as well have been one, too, given her destructive abilities. Instead of speaking a word to him, she knelt by her dog to inspect its leg. A minor cut. Preston had sustained worse bumping his knee on a piece of furniture, and yet the droop in her eyes reflected a concern he hadn't seen since... Colonel Hollis, maybe.

"That was, uh... a pretty amazing display." When didn't even look at him, he continued, "I'm just glad you're on our side."

Her eyes, dark and piercing, met his and held his gaze for a moment. Was she sizing him up again? Then they flickered around to the rest of the group. Her red lips parted slowly as if carefully choosing her words. "You guys gonna be okay now?"

"Yeah. For a while, anyway. We can at least move someplace safer." Another nod. Wasn't much of a talker, was she? "Listen. When we first met, you asked about the Minutemen? One thing you should know about us: we help out our friends." Her brows seem to tighten when he mentioned the word _friends_. Preston held out a sack of caps to her and, after staring at it, then at him, and back at the bag, she took it and opened it. One hundred caps and fifty fusion cells. Would she trust him now? "For everything you've done," he added.

She weighed the bag in her hand, the bottle caps jangling against each other. Was she expecting more? Seriously?

"I didn't exactly do this for money," she said. "But fine. What now?"

Oh. _Oh. _That was a much better reaction. His tongue felt heavy and clumsy for a second before he managed, "For the longest time, Mama Murphy's had a vision of a place called 'Sanctuary.' Some old neighborhood... but one we can make new again."

"Sanctuary." Had he been unclear? "As in, Sanctuary Hills?" From the frown she sported, she understood. Maybe she just hadn't wanted to.

"Ah... Yeah. Little town, due south from here. It's got potential. You know of it?"

Her nails suddenly became some kind of interesting to her, occupying herself with picking at them. The tip of her tongue bulged beneath her upper lip, swiping across her teeth. A nervous tell? "You could say that."

"Well, why don't you come with us? I could really use your help."

Her wide nostrils flared. What wasn't she telling him? A lot, he would guess. But whatever information she had on Sanctuary, Sanctuary Hills, whatever the place was called, he needed to know. Before he could ask, however, she spoke.

"I have some business to finish here first. But..." She hollowed her cheek in thought, then released the suction with a pop. "Alright. I'll meet you there. What do you need me to do?"

"You need to stay strong. Like you been," Mama Murphy replied. "'Cause there's more to your destiny. I've seen it. And I know your pain."

Whatever semblance of poise and cool Julia possessed was starting to crack and shatter like bulletproof glass before his eyes. She drew closer to Mama Murphy, three deep wrinkles between her eyebrows, and took a knee in front of her. She seemed to be searching for something in the older woman's expression. Mama Murphy's gift—The Sight, she called it—was one of those things you took on faith. And, in Preston's case, he was a believer. She hadn't failed them so far, though Marcy had a different opinion.

"What are you talking about?" Julia asked, her voice barely a weak whisper.

"You're a woman out of time. Out of time." The old woman grasped her hand. "But all's not lost. I can feel... your son's energy. He's alive."

He saw her lips tremble. When the first teardrop slid down her freckled cheek, he averted his eyes, feeling he was watching something far too private.

"Where is he? Where is Shaun? Do you know where he is?" When he looked again, her hands were gripping the old woman's so tightly, he feared she might snap her bones. Sturges acted first and stepped closer, but Mama Murphy didn't seem the least bit bothered. "Who took him?"

"Oh, I wish I knew, kid. I really do. But it's not like I can see your son. I can just..." She freed her hand and waved it vaguely. "Feel his life force, his energy. He's out there. And even I don't need the Sight to tell you where you should start lookin'."

Julia released her other hand, dropping it back to her own lap.

"The great, green jewel of the Commonwealth. Diamond City. The biggest settlement around."

"Please," she whispered. "Ma'am, I've got nothing. I need more than that. _Please."_

"Look, kid. I'm tired now. Maybe you bring me some chems later, the Sight will paint a clearer picture."

"No, Mama Murphy. We talked about this," Preston said. "That junk, it's gonna kill you—"

"—Oh, shush, Preston. We're all gonna die eventually. We're gonna need the Sight... And our new friend here? She's gonna need it, too." She slapped her knees with her arthritic little fingers. "Now, let's get going. Sanctuary awaits."

Damn. There was no arguing with that old woman. The Sight be damned, he was convinced that one day he'd find her limp corpse slumped down on some random pre-war armchair, with foam dripping out of her mouth and nose. Resigned to take this one loss, he nodded toward Sturges, and grabbed his musket from its holster on his back. Sturges did the same.

"Alright, folks," he sighed. "Thanks to our friend here it's safe to move out. We'll head over to that place Mama Murphy knows about. Sanctuary. It's not far."

"She _knows_ about it?" Marcy said. "You mean she had one of her 'visions' while she was stoned out of her gourd, and now you want us to just head out on a wild goose chase based on no better plan than 'Mama Murphy saw it?'"

He started to speak but Sturges interjected.

"Whoa, hold on, hold on. Everybody just take it easy. We're all in this together." No one said anything. "Right? So, Marcy. You got a better idea of what we should do next?" Again, nothing, but Preston swore he heard her mutter something to herself. Always had to have the last word, didn't she? _"Anybody?"_ Sturges grinned. "Well, then. Sanctuary it is."

"Let's just hope it lives up to its name." Damn. Had he just said that out loud? He hoped no one else heard it. In any case, he began making his way out the door. He could hear Marcy coax Jun from his near-catatonic state and help him stand up.

He'd expected to see Julia outside. Maybe she had left for Diamond City already. That's what he would have done in her situation, too. With any luck, he'd see her again, strolling through the streets of Sanctuary, wearing that sunny yellow dress and that red lipstick, holding a little boy's hand in hers. And maybe this time he'd see her face lit up with a smile instead of stained with tears.

An explosion caught his attention and nearly knocked him over. They were maybe half a mile away from the Museum of Freedom. Or what used to be the Museum of Freedom, as an inferno stood in its place instead. Panic struck him like being doused in ice water. He heard plaintive groans and confused murmurings around him, but he was looking for her. Julia. Did she make it out? Damn it.

But then he caught a flash of yellow fabric, fluttering in between the flaps of a dark leather duster. The same gust of wind lifted the helmet right off her head, flying away from its owner. Julia stood in front of the raging fire, not frantic, but as serenely as one would observe the rolling ocean waves on the shore. The darkness in her eyes caught the reflection of each ember, each flame consuming that place that many once venerated, a vestige of the pre-war world. She turned her head in his direction and he swore—he would stake his life on it—that he saw a hint of a smile there. Not one of sick satisfaction, nor the smile of a pyromaniac, but it was strangely wistful. As if she had finally accomplished something. Or at least, that's what it seemed like to him, from this distance.

"Crazy bitch," Marcy grunted, tugging Jun along. "I'm surrounded by crazy. Everywhere I go. Crazy, crazy, crazy."

Right. Time to move along. Sanctuary would still be waiting for them.

"Waste of damn good power armor, if you ask me," Sturges said. Mama Murphy had her feeble arm wrapped around his.

Preston just grunted in acknowledgment and went ahead of them.


End file.
